spin

As I said earlier, "only when you put the cart before the horse."

You are hiding behind the convenience of an undemonstrated status quo.

Amaleq13

Wouldn't focusing on how Tacitus actually applies the terms address both? If he otherwise consistently uses the terms appropriately for the time, a single example of "current nomenclature" would seem to be either a mistake or an interpolation, wouldn't it? Or, if Tacitus is inconsistent in his use, it is fails to stand out as irregular for him.

Why would the (mis)use of the terms by others be relevant in understanding how Tacitus used the terms?

Johnny Skeptic

In ‘The Rise of Christianity,’ Rodney Stark says the following:

"With Marta Sordi (1986), I reject claims that the state did perceive early Christianity in political terms. It is far from clear to me that Christianity could have survived a truly comprehensive effort by the state to root it out during its early days. When the Roman state did perceive political threats, its repressive measures were not only brutal but unrelenting and extremely thorough – Masada comes immediately to mind. Yet even the most brutal persecutions of Christians were haphazard and limited, and the
state ignored thousands of persons who openly professed the new religion, as we will see in chapter 8.”

“Second, persecutions rarely occurred, and only a tiny number Christians ever were martyred – only “hundreds, not thousands” according to W.H.C. Frend (1965:413). Indeed, commenting on Tacitus’ claim that Nero had murdered “an immense multitude” of Christian, Marta Sordi wrote that “a few hundred victims would justify the use of this term, given the horror of what happened” (1986:31). The truth is that the Roman government seems to have cared very little about the “Christian menace.” There was surprisingly little effort to persecute Christians, and when a wave of persecution did occur, usually only bishops and other prominent figures were singled out. Thus for rank-and-file Christians the threat of persecution was so slight as to have counted for little among the potential sacrifices imposed on them.”

Following is a return e-mail sent to me by Dr. Jonathan Roth, a professor at San Jose State University in California. Dr. Roth’s comments are in italics.

You told me that you have a Ph.D. in ancient history. What are your main areas of expertise?

“Military history, Judea in the first century CE, ancient race and ethnicity.”

Regarding Tactitus' statement that Nero persecuted "vast multitudes" of Christians, does the statement provide any indication of how many Christians are implied?

“It does mean that more than a handful were involved, but says nothing other than that. If you read the passage, however, it can be construed to mean that some Christians were arrested and tortured into confessing that they set the fires. Then they gave the names of others Christians ‘a large number of whom’ (another way of translating this) were executed not for arson, but simply for being Christians. In other words, the expression refers to the percentage of the number killed, rather than a total number.”

Is it reasonably possible that Tacitus was using hyperbole?

“Tacitus frequently uses such hyperbole. A good example is in his description of various emperors killing members of the Senatorial opposition. He implies that large numbers are involved, but when one counts up the numbers, they are only a few dozen at most. All ancient writers use exaggeration and hyperbole.”

Is it true that the use of hyperbole can vary greatly depending upon who is using it and that there is no way of knowing to what extent Tacitus might have used hyperbole?

“Yes. We seldom have a source other than Tacitus, so it is difficult to check his statements.”

Is it true that Tacitus' use of the words "vast multitudes" did no favors for future historians?

“True, but remember that history was considered literature and meant for entertainment. Tacitus is always thinking about making his stories more
interesting and readable.”

Are there any reputable ancient sources regarding Nero's persecution of Christians other than Tacitus?

“Yes, Dio Cassius, Suetonius and others, but no one other than Tacitus refers to the arson charges.

The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004 says:

"In July 64, two-thirds of Rome burned while Nero was at Antium. In ancient times he was charged with being the incendiary, but most modern scholars doubt the truth of that accusation. According to some accounts (now considered spurious), he laid the blame on the Christians—few at that time—and persecuted them."

Roger Pearse

No, I agree entirely. Although whether we will certainly know the titulature at any given moment might perhaps be questioned.

Ah, we are at cross-purposes. I gather that the usage *at the time* was capable of confusion; there is evidence that even the prefect of Egypt being called procurator as well as prefect, although the earlier use reasserted itself. But as I said, these are memories of journal articles, and the thing to do is read through the examples.

Not that I think that we should not find out what the data says -- far from it. But I sense big conclusions based on some doubtful foundations, and urge caution.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

spin

If you hadn't thrown up your hands and stopped reading, you'll see that I mentioned the prefect of Egypt early in this thread as a special case. You shouldn't act as though it were new information to the thread.

There seems to be only one reason for you to urge caution.

S.C.Carlson

I heard you the first time. It did not include the evidence then, and repeating it does not turn non-evidence into evidence. So, where's the evidence that Romans was thoroughly "normalized" in the manner necessary to support your claim?

Stephen

Roger Pearse

Just further to this; if there are atheists here who want to argue contra mundum that Annals 15:44 is an interpolation based on the idea that Tacitus is always right on nomenclature, and so a seeming mistake here proves that there is a problem, then perhaps they might serve us all and go through Tacitus in this manner?

While it does require us to be certain of imperial titulature for the logic to work, such a task as gathering all the data could only contribute usefully to public knowledge.

I have read that Tacitus is generally pretty good, and used as source on such things, so perhaps it is worth doing.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Malachi151

I have searched extensively and I can find no quotes or even discussions of quotes by either of these writers that use the term "Christian". I have searched their librbaries on Guttenberg Project, I find nothing.

I looked at them on wikipediea, there is no mention of a quote about "Christianity" by them.

Again, I'm looking for how "Christians" could have been identified in 64?

I am first of all skeptical that "Christians" even existed by name in Rome in 64.

Second of all even if they did existed in Rome in 64, I doubt that they would have been infamous enough to have been persecuted in relation to the fire.

Third of all, if there was a group there called "Christains" I doubt that they had anything to do with what we now call Christains, though the detials of the Tacitus quote make that a difficutl case to make, sure they had to "scriptures" that would be familiar to modern Christains.

Mark was origionally thought to have been written in Rome around 70, but that now seem unlikely, its more likely that Mark was written in Greece or possibly Turkey.

I still see no good anwsers here.

Ben C Smith

I am not contending that the Roman readership had no Jews (id est, Jewish Christians). In fact, I rather think it did. What I am contending, and what is inscribed into the text of Romans at virtually every level, is that the intended readership was Christian. It is also apparent from several references that there were, in fact, gentiles among the readership, as well.

There is no finagling going on. Nevertheless, I agree with you that the author of Mark had some Latin behind him.

It happens today. Take the suffix, if it can be called that, -eme. We took that -eme from phoneme and then added it to another root to make morpheme, then to another root again to make semanteme. There is nothing about -eme that is standard English. We formed those made-up words by analogy with phoneme.

I therefore reject your generalization across languages.

Examples of Greek (or at least non-Latin) words adding this Latin suffix:

1. Did the term Ασπουργιανοι derive from king Ασπουργος? I cannot find any attestation of Ασπουργια.
2. The term Ηρωδιανοι certainly derives from Ηρωδης. Of course, the Herod family had some Roman connections, but is there a Latin term attested behind Ηρωδιανοι?
3. The term Σιμωνιανοι derives from Σιμων. Of course, Simon reportedly went from Samaria and Palestine to Rome.
4. The term Καρποκρατιανοι derives from Καρποκρατης. No explicit Roman connection of which I am aware.

Please keep in mind that none of this is designed to vindicate Acts per se. I agree that the suffix here is a Latin one. I just do not think we can exclude Antioch as its origin. It was a major city in the Roman empire; surely there was some Latinization there.

Do not. I said probably, and I was including 1 Peter. I do not want to turn this into a debate on dates. It was a minor point to begin with.

The argument from silence.

Do you ever smile?

Another argument from silence. If that is what you want to stake your case on, fine. It is not going to convince me. Whether it convinces others is their business.

How your response in any way pertains to my statement is unclear. What I said is that Tertullian did not need Tacitus to write about the Neronian persecution. It is evident that Christians had information about the Neronian persecution (fact, fiction, or exaggeration) apart from Tacitus. Acts of Paul, Ascension of Isaiah, probably 1 Peter, the book of Revelation.... I am not accepting any bad press. Nero was remembered among Christians as having persecuted Christians, right or wrong.

That same word again. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Red herring? The question is one of source. What were the sources for our Tacitean passage? If his source was, say, Josephus, or any other of the authors who conflated prefect and procurator, he could have easily made this mistake. Only if his source happened to be some official imperial document, or the very minutes of the trial of Jesus, would we be assured of accuracy.

Roger already cited this passage for us, but let me reproduce it here for convenience:

Sub Tiberio quies. dein iussi a C. Caesare effigiem eius in templo locare arma potius sumpsere, quem motum Caesaris mors diremit. Claudius, defunctis regibus aut ad modicum redactis, Iudaeam provinciam equitibus Romanis aut libertis permisit, e quibus Antonius Felix per omnem saevitiam ac libidinem ius regium servili ingenio exercuit, Drusilla Cleopatrae et Antonii nepte in matrimonium accepta, ut eiusdem Antonii Felix progener, Claudius nepos esset.

Under Tiberius all was quiet. But, when the Jews were ordered by Caligula to set up his statue in the temple, they preferred the alternative of war. The death of the emperor put an end to the disturbance. The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judea to the Roman knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.

Is that it? Is that what you are basing your case on? Let me gently remind you that you are trying to make the case that Tacitus knew that Judea was ruled by prefects before Claudius and procurators after. And what text do you produce to prove that Tacitus knew about the change of policy from prefect to procurator? A text that does not even contain either term.

In fact, I challenge you to produce for me the ancient text which demonstrates that there was under Claudius a change in the governance of Judea from prefects to procurators.

Sir Ronald Syme, The Roman Revolution (or via: amazon.co.uk), page 357:

Certain other provinces subsequently acquired by Augustus were placed under the charge of prefects or procurators of equestrian rank.

Tacitus apparently knew that Pilate was in charge of Judea, but since Tacitus is (despite your assertion to the contrary) apparently not privy to any official change in terminology in Judea under Claudius, and since both of these posts could be filled by a knight, and since both procurators and prefects had the power to execute (the principal action taken by Pilate in 15.44), and since the historians actually writing in or of Judea in century I (Philo, Josephus) cannot sort out the difference between procurators and prefects, how was Tacitus to know which title Pilate held?

If prefects did not normally have control of provinces, and Tacitus thought that Pilate did have control of the province of Judea, then the Tacitean mistake of calling him a procurator becomes even easier to explain.

The text itself tells us that the crowd knew these people as Christians. There were probably informers. Perhaps Christian meetings were raided.

We do not know exactly, because the text does not tell us. But the possibilities are myriad.

Are these serious questions? These are pseudoproblems.

And I do know the religion of the person two doors to my left. Protestant.

Yes, they confessed that they were Christians. They had been told to imitate Christ (who gave the good confession, after all), not to deny Christ before the authorities, to keep the faith, and all the other stuff you can find on nearly every other page of the gospels and epistles. And at least some of them stood firm and got themselves killed for Christ. Again, the problem here eludes me.

Evidence, please. We have evidence to the contrary for several periods of Roman rule.

Besides, the passage does not indicate that it was normally against the law to be a Christian under Nero. The passage presents this as a somewhat special case.

I am not trying to make it fit anything. It fits all by itself.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

There is evidence in the epistle to the Romans that what we now call Christians existed in Rome by the fifties, yes. But the Tacitus quote is the only evidence that those people were called Christians at that time.

Not sure I understand the question. I doubt any of the Christians in Rome took part in the events of the life of Jesus. I am not sure anybody claims anyone from Rome did.

The word never appears in the writings of Paul. That is true. But why would we expect it to appear there? By all appearances, the term was bestowed on these sectarians by outsiders, not insiders. That appears to be the inference of the first instance of the word in Acts; it says that they were called Christians, not that they called themselves Christians.

In all the Christian evangelism that was going on (Paul, Apollos, Barnabas, others) somebody (we know not his name, though tradition says Peter) went to the most obvious place of all, Rome, and evangelized it, leaving behind a group of people (probably both Jews and gentiles) that were identified as followers of Christ.

Ben.